


Tidings of Comfort and Joy

by Ninjathrowingstork



Category: Banshee (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-02-13 21:52:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12993267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjathrowingstork/pseuds/Ninjathrowingstork
Summary: On the run and injured with dwindling resources, Billy Russo finds himself stranded in upstate Pennsylvania in a small town called Banshee on Christmas Eve, where he finds the strangest little found family of crooks and cops and gunslingers, and learns that there may just be a way out of the darkness for him. (Knowledge of Banshee characters and plot isn’t necessary, as the town and characters will be explained in time as their histories become relevant)





	1. Chapter 1

 Upstate Pennsylvania was goddamn cold, he realized with sudden clarity as he leaped from the bus into town. It wasn't the damp chill of New York in the winter, with the smell of the streets and river mixing into the general fug, or the fierce, wild, mountain winters they'd had in Afghanistan. Winter in bumchuck Pennsylvania ("Banshee", the sign had said, and the name sounded good to him) was just cold. It made the stitches under the gauze taped to his face still itch. He was glad the ones on his forehead had gone numb shortly after leaving the warmth of the bus. 

 Billy Russo hunched his shoulders in the old military surplus parka he'd gotten from the shelter before hopping the bus, pulled his scarf up to cover the bandages over his jaw, and shook his hair where it tumbled from his beanie to hide what it could of the rest of the gauze. Hitching his duffel back over his shoulder, he started trudging down the sidewalk, back to where they'd passed a diner on the way into town. The stitches in his gut were starting to ache again. 

   **Before**

 It was two weeks after Thanksgiving that he'd finally woken up. Just over three weeks since he'd been brought in, comatose, they'd explained to him, though apparently he'd regained consciousness briefly a week before, then passed out again, which he didn't recall. "Do you remember anything that happened?" they'd asked, "you were in a fight, do you remember how you got here?" It was all a big blur, though, but the pain wasn't. They'd kept him pretty doped up the first few days, and from what he'd understood, aside from the broken arm and deep puncture wound to the gut which they said he was lucky hadn't done more damage than it had, not to mention serious blood loss, he'd been shot in one cheek, and the rest of his face had been more or less shredded in the fight. Most of the damage had been to the right side, according to the doctors, but there were more deep gashes near his left ear over the bullet perforation they were concerned about. They'd talked a lot at him, then they'd gone. There was an armed guard outside the door and no one would meet his eye or even smile and dammit if he could only remember what'd happened, what he'd done, it might make sense why he had the gnawing sense he'd screwed up beyond anything he'd done before. 

 He'd never really had many people in his life who cared that much for him, but he'd expect at least. . . 

  Who? 

  Curtis? _(That's. . . no. Maybe?)_  

  Frank? _(No, Frank's. . . that's not right. He's dead. No, he's. . .)_

 Nothing felt solid, or real, and he was too out of it to ask any coherent questions. He had to call the company, he'd tried to say. Call Curtis about the rent, call the nursing home about (No don't tell them about mom. She's secret. No one can know about her)  Or did they understand, and just not answer? As the days slid together, the gnawing unease began to grow into a burning urgency that he needed to. . . what?

 ( _FRANK. TELL FRANK_ ) Tell Frank what? He was home, right? Frank should be dead, something in his mind said, but Frank being dead made no sense; Frank was the most alive person he knew. Frank was home with. . . And he had a company, didn't he? He, Billy Russo, he'd made it big and had some security company, right? He had to. . . what?

 Then any conscious thought had slid away, and the blackness had come back.

 At some point he'd woken up to find a dark-haired woman in a suit glowering down at him, the bandage taped to the side of her forehead doing nothing to hide her sharp, graceful features. He knew in any other situation he'd be shamelessly trying to charm the beauty, but something in how she looked at him. . . for all the shit he'd been through growing up, he'd never been stared at with such ice-cold rage and loathing.  He heard himself groggily mutter a question. 

 "Wha' happened? Wha'd I do?" The helmet of dressings he was in made talking difficult. 

 Pointing sharply at the bandage on her own head, she hissed "this", then spun on one heel and strode out, leaving him alone again withe the softly beeping machines. 

  **Now**

Banshee didn't seem to have much in the way of civilization, but from the smell that met him inside the diner, it did have good coffee. It was warm, too. The ache that had started seeping into his broken arm with the chill outside began to ebb, and the stitches in his face began to itch with the change of temperature. He'd have to remove them, eventually. If he was lucky he'd find someone to do it so he could put off staring at his mangled skin a while longer. Silently thanking whatever kept the rest of the patrons from doing more than glancing at him as he passed, he slid into a booth at the back with both doors in sight, and a quick dash through the kitchen and out, if he needed to make a break for it. He still felt exposed, too many people, and he was in full view by the front window, but his broken arm was somewhat protected by the corner, and he could fight with his left hand, if needed. 

Closing his eyes for a moment to quiet the swirling background panic, he almost missed the waitress approaching his table.

 "Hey, what can I get you tonight?'

 "I'll, um. . ." he felt the small wad of bills in his pocket, and how much smaller it was after buying his bus ticket. He hadn't had to lift wallets since he was a kid, but he'd managed a few dips with his good hand before leaving town, thankful that the old skills learned from one or another of his mom's "boyfriends" hadn't faded over the years. There were still hidden caches and go bags he'd hidden around the city, from hollowed out spaces behind bricks to empty buildings set up as boltholes, but it wasn't safe to even try those, and, in his state, even less safe if he was being followed and accidentally compromised somewhere he'd need down the road. He'd either have to lift a few more, or find work soon. Peeling off a handful of $1's, he held them out with as much of a grin as the dressings and the healing cuts on his mouth would allow. "I'll have a cup of that coffee I smell, and will this get me a slice of that pie also?"

  With a smile he was sure looked much less gruesome than his own, she answered that it was, and taking the small pile of bills after jotting down the order, turned to head back behind the counter, but for a moment her cheerful mask slipped, and he knew.

 He knew how he must look, and what she must think of him, who she must assume he was. He could never disguise his height, and even after weeks of inactivity he still had a fighter's build. With his old, dirty jacket and cap, arm still in a cast and sling, and heavy layers of gauze taped to his face, as well as all the other scabs and healing bruises not hidden, he knew he must look like trouble. Someplace like this probably saw more than its share of homeless drifters pass through, and knew enough not to make them too welcome. Banshee, Pennsylvania might be a good place to get lost in, for a while, if he could find someplace to stay, but he didn't want to bring the kind of chaos anyone tracking him would cause to the quiet farming town.

 The waitress silently returned a few minutes later _(she hadn't gone to the phone on the wall, so if she'd called the police, it hadn't been on that one)_ , and quietly set the plate and a mug of coffee down on the worn tabletop, then left as silently as she'd arrived. Cupping the mug in his good hand, he reveled for a moment in the heat from the china. There'd been times in the past when the heat from a mug of coffee, or what was charitably called coffee there, was his sole source of comfort. Except, that is, when Frank was there. Billy might have had a repuatation as the charming one, always ready with a wisecrack, or a jab at absent COs, but it'd been Frank who was the real storyteller and comedian. He'd always played dumb, the big meathead soldier, but he was the one who'd kept them sane, kept them talking and made them laugh.

  Frank.

  _(That was before,)_ he reminded himself.

 The coffee, it turned out was as good as the smell had promised when he'd walked in, and he felt the last of the chill fading from his bones. One ache faded, and a dozen more began to flicker to life again. Whatever had happened to him, a fight, from what he'd learned, must have been brutal. The stab to his stomach was low enough to have slid below his tac vest, and even without that still healing or weakness from the coma, movement would've been painful at first from all the bruises he'd found peppered across his body. His whole back had been a mass of greens and yellows and purples, the first time he'd been able to look at it in a mirror (something about him doing that niggled at the fragments of his shattered memories, and he hadn't tried to look at his face; he'd changed the dressings himself by touch.) He knew he was still healing, and probably should still be in bed even, but there was no time for that on the run.

 The door to the street opened suddenly, and he tensed slightly, his fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in as he quietly cursed at himself for not watching the street better, and a tall, lean man with muscular shoulders strode in. He was dressed for the cold, like everyone there, in a dark blue parka with the collar zipped up to his chin, and the edge of a scarf showing over the top. With a cap pulled down over his ears, he looked, Billy realized, much like he himself would, without the wads of gauze and scattered cuts across his face. _(A bit wider in the chest and shoulders)_  he noted, assessing the man as a possible threat.

 "Evening, Bunker," the waitress called across the counter. "The usual for you, I take it?"

 "That'd be perfect, thanks" came the rumbling reply as the other man slid into a booth several down from his own.

 "Heard about your truck earlier from Brock, you still trying to fix it?"

 "Yeah, I've been up to my elbows trying to get it running all day. No luck yet, though."

 Car trouble. That would explain the wide streak of what looked like grease stretching along the man's left cheek. As the waitress finished jotting down the order and disappeared again, he finally began to relax again.                        

 

Quietly, purposely not thinking about anything he'd left behind him, either in the past week since he'd escaped, or in the muddled mess of his past, Billy slowly picked his way through the slice of pie, chewing the soft filling carefully to not agitate the hole in his cheek and. . .everything else on his ruined face. The pie was good, too. Fresh, fresher than anything he'd had since he woke up. Homemade, he guessed, judging on where he was. _(Goddamn first home cooked meal I can remember, and the last I'm gonna get for a while if I don't get something worked out soon.)_ When the pie was finally gone and the gnawing hunger had begun to fade, he slid the empty plate away from him, and, once more cupping the warmth of the mug of coffee in his good hand, he let the soft buzz of the diner and the quiet, cozy safety of the diner lull him into a light sleep.

 

_There was blood on his hands. He didn't know if it was his, or from the body on the ground, bleeding out from where his knife had ripped into flesh._

_The beautiful woman from the hospital was there, but they were both somewhere else, then. She'd told him her name before, in a time before the hospital, and they were in a bedroom and naked and in each other's arms and he was warm and safe and realizing she might actually care about him._

_A rush of feathers; black taffeta raven's feathers, and a spray of blood. Frank was there and- And. And?_

_No, stop. He burned everything behind him, destroying everything he'd touched or cared for. He destroyed everything, anyway._

_Horses. There were horses stampeding around him in a whorl of colors. Children were screaming in the distance, he couldn't tell if they were riding the horses, or beyond them. Dinah-the woman from before, was there and he wanted to yell for her to run, to get away while she could, to take the children and run, but before he could, there was the bang of a gunshot and she crumpled to the ground, bleeding from her head and shoulder. A moment later he realized he'd fired the gun._

_Frank was there, somewhere in the horses. No, Frank was outside, on the grass, and he had to find him, to warn him. But Frank was hunting him. No, it was men in black masks, they knew what he was, they offered him the world in exchange for his soul. Or was it a one-eyed man who offered the choice, but asked for his soul in exchange for his life?_

_Blood poured from his mouth as he realized what he'd done._

_Then all the lights and colors and horses and the men in masks and Dina were fracturing into a million razor-sharp shards of mirrored glass and Frank was there and all the warmth and life he'd ever seen in his eyes had been replaced with a dark, swirling vortex, and then there was a shard of mirror slicing through him, and Frank was holding it, holding him, and he was falling,_

_falling,_

_falling,_

_screaming as the light and harsh edges of glass cut into him, scraping him raw and carving away everything he'd been, screaming at what he'd done and what'd been done to him-_

_screaming, and-_

 

Hey, hey, sir, you need to wake up, you're-

 He realized he was still screaming a split second after waking up,and the next moment realized there was someone standing over him, holding his shoulders and for a moment he was that kid again  _("nonononononononotagaindon'ttouchme")_ and he was launching himself from the bench, grabbing a fistful of the man's coat in one hand and flicking his wrist for the blade he'd kept strapped there- but there was no blade now, and his wrist wasn't moving and he couldn't swing with that arm because of the cast, so he changed to drive the man back with his bandaged arm, ignoring the stab of pain from the broken bone,trying to get a grip on his coat as he drove his good fist at the man's stomach and-

 Strong arms shoved him away, twisting his good arm behind him, wrapping around him to pinion both the cast and the arm his attacker had trapped and twisted and kicked at the body behind him, blind panic overruling all his training as he ignored whatever was being yelled at him, biting and snapping despite the ache of his bandaged face and-

  _riiiiip_

_(Oh fucking hell)_

It was the stitches in his stomach, where they'd extracted a six-inch glass shard, he suddenly remembered being told with surprising clarity. In the scuffle, he'd forgotten about the still-healing wound had torn the stitches, and possibly more from the sudden, shooting pain. All the fight suddenly drained out of him and he hung limply from the attacker's embrace, trying to get his breathing under control so he wouldn't throw up from the sudden pain. He finally was able to understand the litany the other man had been muttering in his ear the whole time, "easy, easy, easy, whoa, your're just having a bad dream sir, no one's attacking you, you need to calm down sir, I'm not gonna hurt you, it's just a nightmare, whoa, hey, it's ok. Sir, are you alright?"

 Gritting his teeth, Billy managed to nod an affirmative.

 "Ok, think you can stand on your own now? I'm gonna let you go, but you need to behave."  

 Another nod, and the arms released him, and he stumbled away to catch himself on the edge of the table, drawing ragged breaths as he realized what had happened _(a nightmare. It was all a bad dream but - but - and then - musta been yelling in my sleep.)_ If he had any shame or skin on his cheeks left, Billy knew he'd have blushed at the embarrassment. Instead, he shakily turned around to face the man who'd woken him up and found himself staring at the tall man, the one the waitress had referred to as "Bunker". Dimly, he noted that the other man was slightly taller than himself, which was rare. 

 "Sir?" he asked once more.

 "I'm - I'll be ok," he managed to stammer out before another flash of pain left him speechless and doubled up against the table. 

 "I don't think you are, sir. C'mon, let's go for a walk, is this your bag here?" He easily scooped up Billy's rucksack from the booth and slung it over his shoulder, wrapping the other arm firmly under Billy's good arm, supporting him and propelling him surprisingly gently towards the door. "Hey Shelly," the other man called over the counter as they left, "anything left on his bill, put it on my tab. Including the broken mug back there. Sorry for that, by the way." It was only then that Billy noticed the rapidly-cooling wet stains across his lap, and realized he'd dropped his mug of coffee as he'd startled awake, and their scuffle had further shattered the broken ceramic into the linoleum floor. 

 A moment later, the two men were back out in the icy cold, freezing the spilled coffee on his pants and almost immediately leaching all the warmth from the diner from his bones. It wasn't as terrible as before, he realized, with the slight shelter of his companion's body warming his left side. Still catching his breath from the pain in his gut, he didn't notice where they were headed or that his companion was still asking questions until they were a block away from the diner _(fuck I'm getting sloppy. No choice, dammit, I'm in no shape to be fighting anyone right now. If Bunker here decides to get frisky later on, there's always the knife in my boot, if I can get to it.)_ He was still weak as a kitten, but he wasn't unarmed; just not as heavily as he used to or liked to be. 

 "Hey, hey mister, you hearing any of this?"

 The taller man was still talking to him. "Yeah, yeah I"m . . . what was that?"

 "I said I'm sorry if I hurt you, I was just trying to wake you up back there. You're not from around here, I take it?"

 "No, um, I just got in, and you didn't do anything. Guess I'm just not as healed up as I thought." He'd tried to be vague, but the look he caught from the other man said he might have told too much. 

 "Ok, you got a place to go? No, you wouldn't have been napping at the diner if you did," he corrected himself. "Listen, come in to the station with me, and you can hang out there until I find someplace for you. Sheriff Lotus might even know somewhere you can stay."

 " _A COP??? Oh, shit, no no no no-) "_ Hey, thanks for the offer, but I can't-" he tried to pull away from the arm around his shoulders. 

 "Woah, woah, I'm not arresting you and you aren't in trouble, but it's freezing outside tonight, and I'm not gonna turn you out onto the street with nowhere to go, especially if you're injured, sir. Listen, it's warm, and usually quiet on Christmas Eve, even if Banshee can be. . ." he trailed off, leaving Billy wondering what, exactly, Banshee could be. 

 Then it hit him. Christmas Eve. The days since his escape had blurred together in a dash to survive and escape New York. He knew it'd been roughly a week since he'd broken away by the number of times he'd changed dressings, and by the lowering levels in the bottles of antibiotics and painkillers he'd bought no-questions-asked in a back alley (another leftover skill from his childhood), but he'd forgotten what today was.

  Christmas Eve a year ago, he'd been surrounded by Anvil employees in their Christmas party; two years before that, the squad had  held their own small Christmas party in camp, with improvised decorations and care packages that had finally reached them from home (Maria and the kids had sent one to him as well as Frank, he suddenly remembered, and the memory was bittersweet and as painful as the slice from the sliver of glass in his belly.) At that moment, as though on command, another wave of pain shot through the healing cut. Gasping in surprise and agony, he found himself doubled over again, half-supported by the tall cop. 

 "Listen, if I can't take you in to the station, then I'm driving you over to the hospital to get checked out. Either way, you're not dying on my streets tonight like the goddamn Little Match Girl." 

 Slowly getting his breath back from the pain, Billy had started shaking his head halfway through the statement. "No , no, no hospitals. I'll be fine, jeez. Fine, I'll go sleep on the station sofa or whatever'll make you happy, just. . ."

 "Yeah?"

 His teeth had started chattering at some point, all the heat from before was gone in his legs from the frozen pants, and his arm had started aching again. "Just no hospitals, and you swear you're not gonna book me in my sleep or anything. " 

 The other man's eyes looked dark pools in the low light of the street, but the look he saw in them let him know how bad the joke had been. Also how pitiful he must look right now.

_(What the hell, Russo. Lost everything, and now your charm's going also.)_ Something was really wrong then, he realized, and it wasn't just from the torn stitches. There was no way he was making a run for it now and taking his chances in the dark, maybe he'd have been able to survive in some flop back before, when he wasn't half dead, but this was the best offer of a warm bed he was likely to get. Just one thing, though, "Nothing in the system, please," he took a chance. "He'll find me, the man who did this, all of this. He'll-" was as far as he got before the lights and buildings suddenly all pitched around him. 

 "Ok, that's it, you're coming inside NOW." 

 It barely registered as the arm around his shoulders tightened again, half lifting him and bundling him in through the station doors, into the sudden warmth. He was dimly aware as a bearded man in a dark blue uniform came striding up through the brightly lit room, asking Bunker was was going on. 

 "Hey, sheriff, I found him at the diner. Look out, I think he's gonna-"

 As the last of the lights faded with all conscious thought, Billy felt himself collapsing to the wooden floor before being caught and gently lowered by two sets of arms. 

  Kurt Bunker and Sheriff Brock Lotus stood over the grimy, rail-thin man who'd passed out on the station floor, staring down at him, and then each other. 

 "Mind explaining who this is, Bunk?"

 "I never got his name, chief. He was in the diner, and was having what sounded like a nightmare, and-"

 He was interrupted as the front door swung open once more, letting in a draft of cold night air that carried in on it another figure in a blue coat that matched his eyes, and a silhouette both men had thought they'd seen the last of months before.

 "Sheriff?" Bunker was the first to ask.

 "Hood?"                     


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This flashback got somewhat longer than I originally intended, so here it is as its own mini-chapter

Before

He'd floated in and out of consciousness for a few days after that, his lucid periods slowly growing longer and less hazy. At one point, someone, one of the nurses he guessed, had asked a question, commented how the bruising around his eyes was going down and he was starting to look better.

"Thanks, 'try t' look my best f'r comp'ny" he'd tried to slur out. Or at least thought he had.

"That's just the medication talking, at this point" the voice over him called out to someone unseen, beyond the door, and there was a flash of irritation because he knew what he'd said, something sarcastic as he tried to pull together the shattered fragments of himself, but . . . it had slid away in the fog and there was a distant pain on the edges of consciousness slowly rising up to swallow him and -- he must have made some sound, because the nurse leaned over, adjusting something on one of the machines, and it was the darkness that took him instead.

The next time he woke up, the woman with the sharp face was there again, staring down at him. _(What was her name, dammit? And where's. . .Frank? No, he -- he'd -- shit there's something-)_ Struggling to remember what'd happened, how he'd landed here, all he could think of was Frank, his buddy, his brother, the closest thing he'd had to a family-

Family

Frank

The memory of Frank and his family itched like a splinter and-

-and

-and

"Frank, wh'rs he? I- I gotta -- gotta-" He started to sit up, to pull at the wires and tubes connected to him, but was stopped short by sets of restraints around his wrists, and, when he tried kicking weakly, around his ankles as well, pinning him to the bed. Then, panic finally set in, coiling around his ribs and rising up to choke him. He started to thrash against the leather cuffs, shouting through still-bruised lips as best he could through the layer of bandages and strange numbness covering his face, and he distractedly noticed a corresponding numbness centered around his lower abdomen. It was like when he was healing after the through-and-through from the AK-47 round, but. . . bigger. Had he been shot? _Yes_ a corner of his mind told him, but. . . that wasn't it. So he'd been shot and. . . but someone else was shot and there'd been lights and colors and horses and-

The carousel? Frank - Frank'd told him about going there with his family-

"M'ria and the kids . . . w're . . . I gotta- gotta see 'em and-" and there was something wrong, they were in danger, or - or- and then the nurses were rushing in with a team of guards and they were pushing him back down to the bed and shouting to each other, to him, and all he could think of was _(where's Frank and Maria and the kids, what happened to them, to me? Gotta - gotta go, he's - he's gonna, I didn't- I - I - I -Frank, and)_ then he was fading, fading, fading, and for and instant, the thought hit him with perfect clarity _(and I'm a selfish bastard who only ever cared for myself and never knew when I had something good for once in my life.)_ Then he was out once more, and the next time he surfaced again all that was left was the memory of panic, a new set of bruises ringing his wrists in the cuffs, and a nagging sense that something was horribly wrong and he needed to see Frankie and his family.

She was there again this time, the woman who always stared at him with a mixture of loathing and hatred he couldn't remember ever having earned, then again, he'd been despised just for existing before, so. . . _(it's a "D" name. "D" something. . .)_ The "D"-something-woman wasn't alone this time, there was a tall, willowy blonde with her, the two talking in hushed voices until they heard him stir as he awoke.

"Mmm, ah, where's. . . I'm. . . need t'. . ." _(Frank's going somewhere and I need to go and. . . what?)_ His mind felt clearer today, but somehow talking felt even harder, and he tried to lever himself up on his elbows, finally taking in the room around him. The "D" woman who hated him started to say something, taking a half step forward, before the blond jumped in, stepping in front of her companion and gently grasping his shoulders, pushing him back down to the bed with an ease that was vaguely concerning.

"Mr. Russo, Mr. Russo you need to stay still. Hey, it's a miracle you're even awake right now and you need to rest." Her voice was. . . harder to decipher than the other woman's; he couldn't tell if she was a friend, but she seemed. . . familiar, somehow. Something said the memory of her was connected to a memory of Frank, but. . . at least she didn't seem to hate him, so that was one thing in both their favor. She'd just pushed him back into his pillows and hit a button to adjust the bed to a seated position when the dark-haired woman reached around, pulling her away from his bedside as a nurse bustled in, summoned by the change in beeping from the machines he was tethered to.

"Hey, you can't be that close to him. You don't know how dangerous he can be, even like that."

"I- I know," straightening back up and and shoving a stray lock of hair back behind one ear, she composed herself, glancing down at him, then back at her companion as she fished a folder from her bag. "This isn't my first time in a room like this, though, and I'm not scared of him. I know, I should be," she cut off the other's reply, "but I was in the room during the arraignment, and before when Nelson and Murdock were advising Frank, and. . . and everything that happened afterward."

_(Frank? Arraignment? What happened to-?)_

"Dinah, I've met some pretty. . . dangerous people, doing what I do, and the man I met in the hotel that day wasn't half as scary as some of them, even knowing what else he's done. I know, I know my judgement might be a little clouded on the subject, considering what came next, but. . . but I know I don't have to be scared of Billy Russo."

_(Dinah! Knew it was a D. But how do I know blondie here? She knows Frank and -- did I see them together? Frankie wasn't there when I met her, was he?)_

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm sure."

"Ok. Mr. Russo," It was scowling-woman-Dinah's turn to tower over him, arms crossed. "How much do you remember about how you got here? Last time you woke up you were yelling about Frank Castle and his family. Do you remember why?"

“Frank-I-I gotta-“ he searched through a jumble of fragmented memories. “Frank was there, right? An’-there’s someone coming, an’-an’- his family, it was somet’hin about them. Um, there was. . . there was this CIA spook we took orders from in. . ." Trailing off, he glanced up warily at the blonde. "Um, even if I could remember his name right now, I don't think I could tell you, if that's what you want'd to know."

The two women exchanged glances, then, as the blond flipped open the folder and began to riffle through pages, the brunette - Dinah - turned back to him. "Mr. Russo. . . that agent isn't a concern anymore. What I'm asking is if you remember the exact sequence of events leading to your injuries?" Her words seemed professional enough, but even through the lingering haze of drugs he could detect an undercurrent of fury. "What do you remember, and were you saying you needed to see the Castle Family? Why?"

"I- because they're. . . " _a smug grin, a staring, sightless blue eye, the burning, roiling rage and humiliation in his gut at being manipulated and used like a tool but needing. . . something_ "They- they need to know, I don't - I don't know why-" _There was something - something he needed, wanted more than anything but that was gone now, gone and it never mattered anyway and just maybe there was still time to- to_ "Please, Ma'am," he turned his head as much as possible to plead with the blond, "you haft'a - haft'a help them, if there's still time-" he finally cut himself off as the woman began to say something. Then, after pausing with a glance at Dinah-who-hated-him, who nodded something that was both an assent and encouragement for her to continue, she glanced down into her folder, plucking out what looked like a large photo print, from the gloss of the surface.

"You. . . you really don't remember what happened, do you Mr. Russo? What's the first clear memory you have, going back?"

He collapsed back into the pillows, knowing what came next was going to be bad. "No. . . it's all still a bit. . . scrambled, and I think pieces are missing." He knew pieces were gone from his memory, from him, at this point, but something said not to let on to just how screwed up he really was. Closing his eyes against the fragments of memories and feelings, he let his head roll back away from them, shaking it slightly as he spoke. "Since I got back, I think. How- how long's it been, now? And where is Frankie, anyway?"

When he heard no response, he opened his eyes again in confusion. There was something passing between the two women, some unspoken conversation as the Blonde slowly raised the photo from the folder. Then, reaching some silent consensus, she held it out, setting it down on the blankets over his lap. It was the copy of an x-ray of a skull. "F. Castle" was scribbled in the bottom in black marker, and the world seemed to freeze for a moment. There was a small, round hole in the skull. "He's not. . . not-"

"No, um, well, Frank Castle's alive now, but he did- did die, from the reports." There was a catch in her voice when she said "died", like she was starting to get choked up.

_(No, blondie, you can't start crying now. Please, not before you tell me what happened.)_ "What. . . when?"

"It was April 14th, last year."

_(Goddamn, it was just after we got back. What was I. . .)_ "Please, I- I need to . . ." As Dinah circled around to lean in the doorway and the blonde pulled up a chair, seated herself, and started reading, he let his eyes slide shut again, as though to block out her words.

"Um, on April 14th, Frank Castle, his wife Maria and their two children were at the Central Park carousel for a picnic. . ."

By the time she'd finished and left, the cotton of the bandages around his eyes was soggy, and he could feel the sting of saltwater on his damaged skin. It was a welcome pain, for once.

The next day, they started him moving around and taking short walks up and down the hallways. When he heard the doctors saying he'd be strong enough to be transferred to a prison hospital soon, he began planning his escape.


	3. Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT DEAD YET!!!

Hi anyone who's still here, I'm not dead yet and neither is this fic! 

Last year when I started it, I was depressed and frustrated with a dead end job and couldn't even care about cosplaying, my other big hobby, since it wasn't getting me anywhere. About the time I started this I was also working on applying to grad programs, and was doubling down on finishing them about the time I posted ch. 2., and as soon as those were all submitted in February I jumped back into cosplay and costuming (and ended up winning a few awards at cons!) 

I started writing this in a Starbucks in San Diego, and now I'm in Cornwall, England for a Master's course, and suddenly want to write again, so chapter three is back underway! 

Also, I low-key want this done before season 2 comes out, ngl


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAND I'M BACK!!!

It was the soft sound of two men talking that finally woke him up, their voices fading in and out as the world faded back in. Hazily, he thought he recognized one from . . . _(Blue coat, over six foot big arms diner man . . . POLICE, COP - NO_ ) and - and he tried to wake up but everything was heavy and warm, warmer than he'd been since. . . since? And the other voice, older and gruffer, he thought he'd heard in the last moments of consciousness he could remember. There'd  been something about going into the station to get warm but not actually being under arrest, and he _thought_ he felt better,  and, when his arms finally obeyed enough to move, he couldn't feel anything holding him to what felt like a cot under him, so the tall man hadn't been lying that he'd be there as a guest, and not as a "guest".

"Doc said he'd be ok, but in his condition. . .

"Good. . . called Mrs. Hopewell if she can put him up. . . know she can handle herself if anything. . ."

"What about. . ."

"We'll see. . . no one there to. . ."

He slowly, groggily forced his eyes open, willing the room to come into focus. ( _Some kinda office?)_ It was wood paneled and spacious, the cot he was lying on tucked in a corner, the large desk in the room partially blocking his view of the door. Out in the hallway, he could hear several voices quietly talking over each other.

" . . . Maggie's gone so the place is empty, but. . ."

". . . see if Sugar can put him up?"

 _(Sugar? Where the hell am I?)_ Gingerly, he tried to lever himself up into a seated position on his elbows, but a sudden tugging pain in his middle stopped him, dragging out an inadvertent gasp as he collapsed back down. At the sound, the voices outside stopped, and with one muttered line the conversation seemed to break apart, with the sound of one set of steps heading away down the hall. The tall man he remembered from the diner rounded the corner a moment later, still in his winter coat and gloves, followed a moment later by a shorter bearded man wearing a sheriff's star pinned to the front of his blue uniform.

_(Sheriff's here, and that's . . . Bunker?)_

  _"_ Hey, it looks like sleeping beauty here's awake finally" It was the bearded sheriff, his voice surprisingly warm. Still, Billy would have bristled at the nickname, but he was just too damn tired. Crossing to stand by the cot, the shorter man dragged over the desk chair, seating himself and crouching down to be closer to Billy's eye level. "You passed out just as my deputy here hauled you inside. He said you told him no hospitals, and normally a man in my line of work would be suspicious if someone as torn up as you look asked that, but. . . this is Banshee, after all." He gave a shrug, also not elaborating on what was so special about the little town. "You're flying pretty far under the radar it looks like, and Bunker said you weren't making trouble, just needed a flop for the night. We did call the doc, though."

 

 _(Shit.) "_ Why'd you - you didn't have to -"

  _"_ Son, you collapsed on my station floor, and Bunk told me there was some kind of scuffle at the diner before. Not-" he held up a hand, cutting off a response, "not your fault, of course, he said, but I don't wanna have you quietly dying here on my watch, and not on Christmas. Anyway, doc said you'd just torn some stitching and pulled at the healing tissue, nothing serious, not compared to how it must'a looked, but he stitched you back up and said you need to take it easy for a bit. A week's worth of down time, and nothing strenuous, and you should be fine."

  _(A week? I-_

"Oh, and he left more dressings and medicine for that-" gesturing vaguely at his own face, "he checked over everything but said that the bandages didn't need changing yet, since you seemed to be doing ok on your own."

 It was slim comfort then, but Billy wasn't sure he was ready for anyone else to see the ruins of his face just yet.  "I - I - I mean, thanks for everything you've done, sheriff, but if the doc thought I had somewhere to stay for a week-"

 "We'll put you up somewhere." Until then, the taller deputy had been standing silently behind his boss, arms crossed in a manner that looked natural to him, but also somehow made his broad shoulders seem even wider. With his scarf untied, Billy could see traces of blue ink creeping above the man's uniform collar, but couldn't make out the design. "It's the least we can do, after all, after I startled you back there."

 "You didn't do anything, I- you've already done more than-" he tried pushing himself back up again, but his broken arm was starting to ache, and his good one was shaking again before he was halfway sitting. Defeated, he collapsed back down again.

 "No, but I was the one who grabbed you, and no offense sir but however good you were before, just from that . . . in the diner, you're no match for anyone right now, and even if you're not going to a hospital, we're not leaving you to fend for yourself right now. There's a few places we could put you up for now, and . . . someone's asking about another."  

 Billy was almost touched at the man's offer. Almost. They were still cops, after all, and despite all his years in uniform, he still didn't trust cops.

 "Thanks, I - you don't know me, and for all you know I'm some monster bringing trouble down on you after me," he glanced away partially to hide the bitterness in his eyes and partially because there'd always be that part of him who knew juuust how to inspire pity, and almost missed the knowing look between the two uniformed men, "but I promise I'll be quiet and back on the road as soon as I get a clean bill of health."

With a sigh, the bearded man brushed his hands down his legs before standing with a sigh, apparently having made some decision. "Ok, you can rest here in my office for now, since it's usually quieter than downstairs, and Bunker here's gonna be on duty tonight, so if you need anything find him or ask someone at the desk where he went. You good for that, Bunk? "

 "I am, sheriff, " he rumbled. "And tomorrow we'll get you set up somewhere safe."

  _(Safe, that's a good one.)_ He didn't feel safe anywhere unless he knew there was a knife in his boot, another under his pillow, and a decent supply of firearms stached within easy access. Still, it'd be a safer shelter to bunk down in somewhere less obvious than the no-tell motel.

 "All right then. I'm sheriff Brock Lotus of Banshee county, by the way. Kurt Bunker over there, you've already met."

 "Pleasure to meet 'ya, sheriff, I"m. . ." he thought for a moment. All his backup IDs were still in New York, probably blown already. "I"m Bill." It's all he'd ever really been. Just himself, on his own, no family name to matter that much before the Corps.

 The taller man had turned away by then, moving over to the coat rack in the corner as he started to tug off his gloves and tuck them into the pocket of his coat. "Well you try to get some rest, Bill. The Banshee sheriff's station isn't the coziest place to spend a Christmas eve, but it's a damn sight warmer in here than it is out there. "  As the sheriff passed Bunker at the coat rack by the door, he turned back to the other man for a moment: "and Bunk, you've still got some grease there-" he pointed to his own cheekbone again, then turned and disappeared down the hall.

 With his back still to the corner the cot was in, Bunker stripped off his coat, revealing more dark ink around his neck that Billy couldn’t make out, and, hanging the coat on a hook, swung open another door at his elbow revealing a small bathroom inside. Grabbing a towel off a shelf, he flipped on the water then leaned back in the doorway while it heated up, his grease-smeared cheek hidden from sight.

 "So I don't mean to pry," he drawled out, "but what happened to your face?"

  _(Time to play it cool, Russo. Get the cop to trust you, but don't say too much.)_ "I, um, I crossed someone dangerous. It was a, heh, saying it was a personal thing sounds like I'm dodging the question, don't it? And it wasn't personal, not really, just something I thought I had to do, I guess. Go after a guy before he came after me, you know? Seemed important at the time, I guess, but now?" He shook his head slightly on the pillow, hair flopping in and out of his face.

 For a moment the other man was quiet as he scrubbed at the grease spot on his face, and, irrationally, Billy wanted to be able to see that side of his face, hidden in profile, see the grease come off, see something change in the quiet little room.

 "So is that why you ran? The guy you were fighting?" For a moment, the hand with the towel stilled and lowered, Bunker bracing himself on the counter with his other hand. "I mean, if there's someone coming after you, it'd help us to know who to look out for."

 "No, it was, uh, he was. . . " he let out a sigh and shoved his hair back with his good arm, and the words started flowing. "I fucked up. I - I didn't see it that way at the time, you know? Just, though if I did this one thing, then everything'd be ok, right? Well I. . . I let some people get hurt. Get killed" he corrected himself. "Didn't pull the trigger myself," ( _not that time, anyway)_ "but I was too much of a selfish bastard to do something about it . I know I've always been. . . I was scared, see? Scared if I did something, that the folks I'd used, who'd used me the way everyone else in my life has, that they'd kill me too and I couldn't. . . no, I could't lose what I'd spent my life wanting when I was so _goddamn close_ ," smacking the cot at his side with an open palm, he fought back the faint pricking building up in his eyes. "And - and then one thing led to another, and then I - I thought I'd done it, I had everything I'd fought for, respect, power, money, all of it. . . there were always these loose ends, always one last job, one more. . . and I kept - kept trying to shut the door on the past, be one of the guys in charge, for a change and-" he swallowed thickly, "and then I fucked it up. Made the whole shitstorm even worse like I always do, even found a lady I mighta been falling for and screwed that up with her, too. Everything's gone, and it's my own goddamn fault." Dropping his hand over his eyes, he suddenly wished for unconsciousness again; wished the tall cop would leave or shoot him or something. "Don't know why I'm telling you all this, but no, the guy who shredded my face probably isn't hunting me." ( _Not yet, anyway. Frankie'll track me down someday if he feels like it, but he doesn't give a shit about me anymore.)_

 "Doesn't have to be the end, you know," Bunker cut in on his self-pitying spiral before it could go any further.

 "What?"

 The deputy was drying his face at this point, and checking the towel for any last traces of grease. "It doesn't have to be the end. Find somewhere you can stop running, and start again."

 That drew a wry laugh from him. "You gotta be fucking kidding. One look at my new face and they'll run screaming. You got any idea how hard it is to drag yourself up when you're starting with jack shit? How long it took me the first time?"

 For a moment, the room was silent again, before Bunker broke the silence, frozen mid-motion with the towel pressed to his cheekbone: "listen, I might not know what all shit you've been through, but I do know a thing or two about having to start over, about having having all your past mistakes carved so deeply into your body that you'll never be able to escape what you did." As he spoke, he'd begun to turn towards Billy, only lowering it when he finished speaking to start crumpling it up in front of him, both un-gloved hands now visible.

 Not that Billy noticed, not after seeing the man's face. Not after recognizing the faded tattoo that had been hidden by the smudge before.

  _(A swastika? He's a goddamn NAZI??)_  Reflexively, he recoiled slightly. The old U. S. of A. may not have always treated him well, but Billy Russo was still a Marine, and some part of him still considered himself a patriot. Then, he noticed the rest of the man's ink; the numbers stamped across his fingers, the eagle wings took shape from the loops climbing up his neck. "You're - you're a. . . "

 "I - I understand that my physical appearance may be unsettling, but I assure you that my ties to the movement were severed long ago-" Bunker cut himself off from what sounded like a carefully rehearsed speech. His posture had changed, too, his shoulders sloping to seem smaller, and the well-practiced words coming out softer, almost placating while his gaze got lost somewhere on the floor between him and the cot. "So - so you see that I might just know something about having to carry you sins around with you. About knowing who - _what_ people assume you are. I found someone, something I thought was my family, and all that ended in . . . blood and pain, and . . . now I'm - I'm just trying to live day-to-day with the hope that someday, _somehow_ , I can make up for the pain I caused." By then, he'd dragged his eyes back up to meet Russo's, and the other man was met with a wave of exhausted guilt and defiance; the look of a man who knew damn well what he looked like, who'd carried that knowledge with him as his personal penance for too long.

 "So - so what're you doing in Banshee?"

 "Was born and raised here, got into the Brotherhood here, and then. . . " he left what happened next unsaid, but it didn't need saying. Slowly, Bunker strode over to the Sheriff's abandoned chair, and, dropping the towel in a pile on the desk, sank slowly down onto the seat. "Spent some time in Florida getting my head on straight, first became a cop there, too. Started working on getting this shit off," he jerked a thumb at his inked cheek, "but um, well, backroom ink doesn't fade that easily, and. . . at this point, it's become more of a reminder of how far I've come . Someday, though." he flexed the inked fingers of his left hand. "Someday I'll get this shit off of me."

 An awkward silence stretched out between the two men, and Bunker's gaze dropped back to the floor between his polished boots.

 For once, Billy Russo was left at a loss for words.  "Um, shit," he finally managed.

 "Yeah. Anyway, you’re safe here for now. I know what it’s like to need a second chance, to get your shit together and start over. I probably wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for a few people deciding I was still worth giving a crap about.” Bunker stood cleared his throat awkwardly, and grabbed the towel off the corner of the desk as he headed back towards the door. “Sheriff’s out on patrol tonight, so I’ll be downstairs if you need anything, and there's an extra blanket under the cot if you get cold. And Bill?"

 "Yeah?"

 "For what it's worth, you're not the most screwed up guy in Banshee tonight." Then he was also gone down the wood-floored hallway.

 

Billy actually laughed at that. Exhausted, aching, and alone finally in the sheriff's office in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania on Christmas eve,  he laughed for real for the first time he could remember in a long time. As he drifted off again, his last half-conscious thought was that if an ex-neo-Nazi cop could find a place, maybe there was hope for him also.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up way longer than I expected, and Hood was supposed to show up here also, but the guys had a lot to say, and so Hood will have to turn back up again in the morning. 
> 
> Anyway, here's over 2700 words I mostly wrote while trying to keep my brain going on an essay I'm actually supposed to be writing, so now I'm off to write another thousand or so words about the use of Furiosa in Fury Road making it qualify as a cult film along with the first three, because this is apparently what grad students do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHH HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THE S2 TRAILER????? When it landed, I knew I wanted this done before the season came out, so here you are, over 2k words of Billy in the hospital. This chapter was meant to be his escape but it got away from me a little, so the actual escape will be next chapter! After that, we can move on with the Banshee Town Shenanigans.

**Before**

 

Four days of scouting for an exit on his guarded walks down the hospital corridors later, and he had something that, to his fragmented mind, looked like a plan.  With one arm still in a cast, there was no way he was fighting his way out, and taking a hostage to help him when he had only one good arm was also impossible. That left speed and timing, having to rely on catching anyone in his way by surprise, grabbing street clothing on his way out of the hospital- anything to let him blend in outside and not escape only to freeze to death on the streets of New York. He almost laughed to himself at how ironic that would be, and half-turned to someone he still expected to be there to tell the phantom with dark hair and heavy shoulders and a crooked grin about his private joke. . . and then couldn't remember who he was supposed to be talking to, or even what had been funny to begin with. That was still happening, occasionally. Things he knew he should remember from before would hover at the edge of remembering, and then vanish when he tried looking at them. Even things people had told him since waking up sometimes slid maddeningly away from him - what day it was, his guards' names (one of them, he was sure, was named Murphy. It was New York, after all, so there had to be a cop named Murphy. Right?) would suddenly be blank spots in his mind. The balding man who'd said he was Billy's neurologist had said something about brain trauma and retrograde amnesia, and other technical details he couldn't understand, and then couldn't remember. He didn't know if it was his own screwed-up brain or the heavy drugs they kept him on making him groggy an unfocused.  There were things he knew they weren't telling him, also.

 

That day when D. . .  ( _Dinah, her name was Dinah and we were. . . I told her about the. . . the time when. . . and I think I wanted us to be more because. . . I was safe with her? Wanted to feel safe?)_ when Dinah and Blondie had showed up, she'd read from police and medical reports about Frank and Maria and the kids, (and _oh god_ he wished he could forget what she'd told him) but her file had only gone through the story of the man he'd spent most of his adult life fighting and marching and laughing beside losing his family in a rain of bullets, and chronicling his transformation into the vigilante known by the press as The Punisher, up through his then-supposed death, and the murder of their old CO. Whatever had happened after, whatever had put him in the hospital with a bandaged face and fragmented memory, no one would tell him, though. Blondie ( _"K" something. She's a "K". Tall and spiky and bright and . . . and . . . Frank was there?)_ had quietly closed the file after reading it to him, and then traded it out for another, slimmer file from her bag that she handed to Dinah before turning to slip out the door.

   

   "This is- this is everything I've put together about what's happened since Frank Castle came back, including the reports you gave me", she told the other woman, her words almost tumbling over themselves. "They said to wait- wait to tell him everything until he's stronger and . . . and starts remembering things on his own. I think the doctor said it was something about not confusing him or mixing up memories, and they don't know how if he'll. . . " she trailed off, with a glance back over her shoulder at where he was lying still in the bed, trying to make sense of everything she'd told him. "Anyway, um, you know where to reach me if you need anything else", and she slipped out and was gone.  

 

For a moment, Dinah looked like she'd say something else, and Billy wanted, _wanted_  her to say something about what they'd been or why she hated him or what the hell had happened to him, but instead she set the file down softly on the small table in the corner, saying it was there for when he was ready to go through her files again, and left, leaving him wondering what she'd meant by that.

 

  The folder sat untouched on the table the whole time. It was coming with him when he made his break, he'd known since Dinah had left it there. Knowledge of what crimes he'd committed in that swirling void of his past, and whoever he'd be in the future could wait until he was away and free. Not knowing what he'd done, what had put him here or what was going on with . . . with the company he was sure he had had, was terrifying, and Billy Russo didn't react to being scared well. There was a familiar rage simmering in the corners of his still-scattered mind that he reached for instead; anger was always easier to handle than fear and what had kept him alive for years. Not that he let it show yet, though. The rage could come later, when he was free and didn't need people to get _too_ relaxed around him, relaxed enough to let him escape.

 

   Over the next four days he first walked as much as he could until the stitches in his gut started screaming at him or spots started dancing in the corners of his vision, and then he walked as much as they'd allow him once he could stay upright longer and longer. Each walk, he tried to see more and more of the floor they had him on, tried to memorize the turns and doorways as much as his unreliable memories would permit. He knew where the guards were stationed and where the nurses' desk was and where the floor storeroom was. Each walk, he could feel his legs growing more steady under him after the long weeks in bed. They weren't keeping him as sedated anymore, enough to keep the worst of the pain of his injuries sealed away behind a hazy barrier but his stretches of consciousness were getting longer and longer, and he knew they weren't doping him up as much to make him sleep.

 

He tried to stay conscious longer once he was strapped back down to the bed, listening for footsteps passing by the door, trying to time the guards as they passed by. It was a race against the clock, Billy knew, that the faster he got his strength back the sooner he'd be moved and lose his window of opportunity for escape. Four days wasn't enough time, nearly a week total since his first shaky steps, and he needed as much recovery time for his one shot at getting out, so he kept up the pretense of being more easily tired than he really was. He'd seen as much of the floor as he needed, so he played at being weaker than he was, stopping in the middle of a walk as long as they'd allow him to so he could watch the movements of the other inhabitants of the floor. Several days and one stolen paperclip later, and he was ready as he could be.  

 

   A week after he'd first woken up to his new life, and the heavy casing of bandages around his head had been diminished to a few layers of gauze wrappings holding the dressings in place, they'd taken him off the IVs of opiates and instead were giving him cocktails of pills every day. The antibiotics he took willingly, but after a day on the new routine he started refusing the heavier painkillers, "nah, I - I wanna - wanna sleep on my own. Jus' gimme something so I can do that without bein' knocked out, ok?" So they did. With the lowered level of medication, suddenly he could feel _every_ ache on his healing body, even something stinging on his shoulder that he only remembered having a bandage changed on . . . early? Before? He hurt, but there was more certainty to his thoughts and hazy memories of . . . before the gaping blank that whatever had done this to him had left behind, There was a clearer distinction between his sometimes-lagging cognition and traitorously clumsy fingers and the sensation of the world being turned down that the heavy narcotics had created. That night, the nightmares began.

 

_He was being hunted from one dark room to another as he carried everything he'd done wrong in a sack on his back. The figures looming in from shadowy doorways pointed accusing fingers at him, and he tried to keep running, the gun in his hands moving on its own accord to mow down the darkened shapes until he was out under the night sky. He wanted to run, wanted to keep running and not look back but the weight of his sins on his back, that might have been a pile of paper bills or might have been thirty pieces of silver, kept him from going faster than a walk, even as the night around him was devoured in a blossom of flame pouring out from the building he'd left. It was because of him, he knew._

 

_The blood-red of the flames eating everything he'd built or touched reflected on the alleyway around him, and then the red of the light became real blood and the asphalt road was a smooth floor slick with it and he was sliding, sliding past a rat-faced man who laughed at him. He wasn't laughing from his mouth, but through a second, gory one carved across his neck from ear to ear. Billy grabbed desperately at the man's jacket to stop his sliding in the growing stream of blood, but the man kept laughing from one mouth while he sneered with the other, mouthing something silently at Billy, something about him being "the help" and suddenly his hand was a knife and he was lashing out at the laughing man as the blood on the floor splashed up while they fought._

 

_They were slipping, floating in the blood as it carried them out into a forest and the man wasn't the rat-faced corpse anymore, but his own mirror image splattered and smeared with the blood surrounding them and he was still stabbing desperately, frantically as the other him held him close, grabbing a fistful of his hair with one hand and wrenching the blade away from him, snapping his knife-hand with a crack that sounded more like bone than metal. The bloodied double grinned at him, his teeth stark white in the bloodied stubble around them, and Billy realized he couldn't move as the other him knifed his own hand down into his stomach, slicing through him and sinking his whole arm into him to reach up and seize his heart and he squeezed and Billy saw the lines of blood on his mirror-self's face glow white and grow to meet and form a mesh of crack before the man's face shattered and fell away to leave a glowing white skull. And Billy screamed._

 

_He Screamed_

 

And Screamed

 

And realized he was awake and covered in a cold sweat and the still-bandaged wound in his gut was aching and there was a nurse in the doorway asking if he was ok, coming in and checking the remaining IV drip going into his good arm. He tried to say he was ok, that it'd just been a nightmare, but all that came out was a dry rasp.

 

"Here, lemme get you some water," and there was a small plastic cup of water being pressed into his hand and guided to his mouth a minute later. He drained it all, spluttering on the water as the nurse pulled the cup away.

 

"I'm- it's ok, jus' a bad dream." The last fragments of the dream had faded, and all he could remember were blood and his own face shattering away to show a glowing skull.

 

"Ok, well it looks like you were flailing around in your sleep some, but the needle's still in place. Doc'll probably take it out tomorrow anyway." The man was the same nurse Billy was almost sure had been on every night that week. Tall, and more casual than the rest of the night staff.  "Just don't go yanking it out in your sleep, right? " And with a reminder that he could be reached with the buzzer if Billy needed anything, he was gone again.

 

As soon as the door shut, Billy realized that'd been the perfect chance for his escape. His good arm wasn't restrained anymore, just his legs cuffed to the foot of the bed, and one friendly, unarmed nurse wearing scrubs that would probably fit him on call. In a day he'd have the needle out of his arm and have a clean shot at freedom.

 

The next day, they took out the IV, since he was eating soft hospital foods by then.

 

The next night, once more foregoing the heavier dose of painkillers, Billy Russo made his escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels like a meandering mush, but so is Billy's mind right now and we needed this segment before getting to the escape! So at this point, Billy's still Very Much Not Ok, as we saw in chapter 1, but he's just strong enough to be able to get around on his own and not be hooked up to anything, but prooobably shouldn't be doing any of the things he'll be doing next chapter. 
> 
> If y'all haven't seen it, there's also a clip out of Billy talking to a therapist while still in the hospital, and a document with notes from his psychologist talking about his nightmares, which I TOTALLY CALLED OVER A YEAR AGO!!! It says he dreams about blood and a white skull over him, so I naturally had to work that in somewhere lol.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ESCAPE FROM (A HOSPITAL IN) NEW YORK!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo! This chapter felt like it took forever to write, but we needed to see just how Billy got himself out of New York. Also, while I tried to do research on all his injuries and recovery time, etc., I didn't really research just how someone goes about escaping from a hospital while recovering from abdominal trauma, sooooo. . . (also my experience with hospitals and ERs doesn't really go beyond when I had to get stitches in my eyebrow when I was nine.)

**_Before_ **

  _He was dreaming again_

 

_He was flying on dark-feathered wings through a dark sky._

 

_There was a gun in his hands. There was always a gun in his hands. His arms were wings, but he had his rifle because he always had his rifle._

 

_He was flying away from something. . . something he didn't-couldn't think about. He had to get somewhere safe. There was a bone-white crenelated tower on a hill he was flying towards where he'd always been safe, but there was something wrong._

 

_There was blood on the mirror-smooth stones, flowing in rivers down from the empty windows that gaped like eye sockets, mocking him for flying too slow to stop whatever had happened._

 

_He knew what had happened._

 

_He couldn't remember what had happened. It was still his fault, even if he couldn't remember what he had, or hadn't done._

 

_There was a crack of lightning, like the report of a gunshot, and the top of the tower shattered into glassy shards that began to rain down on him as he flew. Long, jagged cracks ran down the face of the structure, from the bloodied windows to the looming, empty doorway, making it look even more skull-like as began to crumble over him, the bone-white bricks turning into mirror-bright missiles that tore into his wings as he tried to escape the collapsing tower. One fell on him, feeling more like a hand than a stone, and he fought frantically to get away as the shards cut through him, tearing away everything he was and had been._

 

_He was dying._

 

_He was dreaming._

 

Billy Russo woke up. He hadn't woken up screaming, for once, but he was still shaking and covered with a cold sweat as the last fragments of the dream faded away.

 

That day, they'd taken him off the last of the drips, and he'd managed to hold down some of the bland hospital soup, finally. He'd walked an extra lap around the floor without his legs shaking. His face was still wrapped in gauze, but they'd told him the wounds were healing cleanly, and soon only the worst of the injuries would need to be bandaged over the remaining sutures. He hadn't been told for sure when they'd be moving him, but if he was ever going to get free and learn the truth behind his condition, he'd have to move soon. Tonight was his best chance.

 

Just as his legs had been growing steadier on his daily walks, he'd been working on getting strength and coordination back in the fingers of his left hand, slowly working the stolen paperclip into a rough lockpick. He might not be able to remember much from the past year, but Billy could clearly remember learning to spring police handcuffs from another kid in one of his group homes, and the cuff around his ankle proved just as easy to pick as the ones he'd slipped back then. Once freed, he flipped the end of the blanket back into place and slipped his lockpick back into hiding inside his cast, lying back down and feigning sleep until he heard the soft footsteps of the nurse coming down the hallway again.

 

He waited a breath.

 

Then he screamed.

 

It wasn't a sure bet the man would come in, but Billy knew it was likely he would, at least to wake him up and make sure he hadn't torn anything while sleeping. He was right. A moment later he heard the soft click of his door being opened, and the sound of his shoes padding into the room.

 

"Hey, you ok in here?"

Still faking sleep, he muttered something unintelligible and frantic as he turned restlessly, freeing his good hand from the blanket. ( _Closer, he needs to come closer.)_ And slowly, the nurse approached the bed, reaching out to gently shake him awake. "Hey dude, you're just dream-"

 

And Billy struck. One blow to the head to disorient, and then a chokehold until the man collapsed limply across him, Billy's cast pressed to his mouth to muffle any sounds of protest. The nurse wouldn't be out long, so he'd have to work fast. Swinging his legs out from underneath the deadweight on them, he carefully levered the unconscious nurse the rest of the way onto his bed. It took long moments to completely strip the scrubs and sneakers off him, and as an afterthought he pulled off the man's t-shirt as well. He'd need it more. Amazingly, they were about the same height, but the clothes hung loosely on his frame after weeks of inactivity and a liquid diet. Still, they were better for running and disappearing than a hospital gown.

 

Once the switch was made and the other man was dressed in the paper gown and half-convincingly arranged in the hospital bed, he refastened the cuff around his ankle and the wrist straps that were still hanging from the bed rails, and he was almost done. As the man started to come around with a small moan, Billy reached up with shaking fingers and began to unwind the top few layers of bandage from his own face. He still needed something to keep the dressings in place until he could get more bandages (and was not yet ready to confront whatever might be under all the gauze) , but he was pretty sure enough could be spared for this to work. Tearing off the strip of gauze and refastening what was left, he wrapped the fabric around the other man's face, gagging him as he wrapped and disguised him so the deception would, hopefully, go unnoticed for longer if the guard stuck their head in once he'd slipped past.

 

During the day, at least, they'd stopped posting guards right outside his door, and instead only stationed one in the foyer by the main elevators. He was counting on this still being the same at night. Cracking open the door, he looked up and down the hallway as far as he could. It was empty and silent, and still fully lit. He'd run tougher drill courses back when he was training, he knew, but none of those had been when he was as out of condition as now, and he'd always been armed and able to shoot or fight his way out. Now, he was down an arm, injured, and marked as a patient by his bandaged head. Still, it was run now or face whatever waited for him when he was moved out of here. With the folder left for him cradled to his chest to hide his cast, he slipped quietly down the hallway to the end, checked that that hallway was clear, then darted left, another left, and a right, and he was at the door to the stairwell around the corner from the elevator. One more corner to the right instead, and he was at the  doorway to the employee coatroom and lockers that he'd seen while on a walk.

 

Tucking the folder under one arm, he fumbled with the ring of keys he took off the nurse and, hoping the room was empty, got the door open and slipped inside just as he heard the guard's footsteps coming around the corner on patrol. As they passed, he hastily went through the coats hanging inside for one that would fit his height and injured arm, and found a cap to hide the bandages somewhat. ( _I look like the damn invisible man like this.)_ Once the hallway was quiet again, he cracked open the door, checking that all was clear before slowly exiting and closing it softly behind him. He was almost back at the stairwell door before he heard a muffled exclamation in the distance, and knew his ruse had been discovered. Wrenching the handle open he bolted through as the sound of the guard's feet came pounding down the hallway

 

"Hey!"

 

Anything else the guard had to say was lost as the door slammed shut and he was bolting down the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him. It was only three stories down, nothing he couldn't have done easily several months ago (as far as he knew), but he'd have to pace himself now if he was going to make it out the door and to some bolthole before collapsing. Distantly, he realized there was an alarm going off somewhere in the building, and by then he could hear the guard on the stairs several flights above him _(Shit, I'll never outrun him like this. Think, Russo, think.)_

 

There was a drawstring running through the bottom of the jacket he'd grabbed, so he ripped it out of its casing one-handed as he passed another floor where the door miraculously didn't open, and then rounded another corner. There it was, what he'd been looking for. There was a pipe running along the floor by the wall, several inches off the floor. Taking precious seconds in his run, he knelt stiffly, knotting one end of the drawstring around the stair railing and, stretching it across the landing, tied the other end off on the pipe. A moment later, he'd finished surveying his makeshift tripwire and bolted down another flight of stairs. He'd barely reached the next floor down when he heard a shout and a crash as his trap caught his pursuer. He didn't stop, though.

 

By the time he reached the ground floor, he could hear more feet coming down the stairs, but he still had a few moments to stop and breathe around the growing ache in his gut from where he was pushing the healing tissue as he ran. They'd be close on his heels, but the real danger was still between him and the outside door. He hadn't been conscious when the brought him in, and he'd never been able to see the routes to the front or rear doors on any of his walks. He didn't even know where this door would land him when he went through. Once he got out on the street, there were dozens of ways he could disappear in a hurry, but first he needed to make it to the door.

 

One breath.

 

Another.

 

Subtlety would be less his friend now than speed. With a crash he barreled through the door in to the hallway beyond, surprising the few people in the area.

 

"The back door, where is it?" he barked, hoping someone would point him in the right direction, despite the distant alarm sounding and the ghostly-pale gauze wrapped around his head. Shakily, one young doctor raised one hand, pointing down the corridor to their left. Nodding a quick thanks, he was jogging as fast as he could down that way, then another left away from the sounds of more people he assumed was the front of the building. At every junction of the hallway, he stopped,  clearing the doorways carefully, scoping out every passageway and waiting until anyone inside had passed before proceeding. There were still the distant sounds of shouting, so he knew his pursuers were approaching still, but so far no one had tried to stop him on this floor.

 

Then the alarms started ringing.

 

And Billy ran.

 

By now he was in a hallway lined with what looked like offices, and at the end there was a small foyer with a glass-covered wall beginning to glow with the first gray light of dawn (something itched in his memory about a glassy wall for a moment, and then was gone) and he could see the doorway out and he was running, running, and then there was a blue-shirted security guard striding to block his path and with a dive he knew he'd regret later he slid and rolled under the man's wild grab and then he was out the door and bolting down the side street out into the New York pedestrian traffic where, with the hood of the coat up and the brim of his cap down, he could pass as just another homeless crazy and get lost in the crowds of the morning rush.

 

Behind him, he could still hear the distant alarms of the hospital combined now with approaching police sirens, but by the time they arrived, Billy Russo would be gone.

  
  


The rest of the morning he spent dipping for wallets as he made his way as far from the hospital as he needed to not hear the sirens anymore, thankful now he'd practiced with both hands as a kid with his right hand still out of commission. It wasn't much, but the cash he landed was enough to buy him a couple changes of clothing and a duffel and a sleeping bag from a surplus store, and then some more bandages and ointment from a no-questions-asked pharmacy. Taking the chance to use their dim, grubby bathroom, he quickly pulled on the new-ish jeans and nearly-new boots he'd picked up, leaving the jacket and scrubs top on until he was somewhere at least marginally cleaner. The old pants and shoes got chucked in the dumpster out back as he left by the rear door.

 

The next stop came from directions written on a ragged scrap of paper the guy at the pharmacy had slipped him when he'd asked where he could get what he needed. From the signs around him, and from long-buried childhood memories, he knew he was in the right place to get the meds he needed. It was a quiet, tense exchange, but he got what he needed and left as soon as he could.

 

There was a place down by the water, he vaguely remembered, some no-tell-motel that had shut down years ago and was still boarded up at the edges of a crumbling industrial park.  It was early evening by the time he made it to the broken-down structure. He glared his way past a handful of other squatter, but there was an empty room at the back with a door he could lock. It was bare except for one dilapidated sofa that smelled suspiciously of old coffee and BO, and the carpet was long gone, but the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling worked, and the one window overlooked a fire escape into the alley behind it. It wasn't much, but he'd lived in worse conditions.

 

By then, all his injuries were screaming and his legs were shaking under him so, stripping the cushions from the couch and shoving the frame against the door as an added barricade, he unrolled the sleeping bag across them and sank down onto the makeshift bed. Digging around in the duffel bag, he fished out the bottle of water he'd grabbed from a corner bodega along with some cans of soup and crackers, and popped his first round of painkillers and antibiotics. Finally able to rest, he leaned back against the damp wallpaper, and, with trembling hands, pulled out the now-creased folder that held the secrets buried in his missing memories and flipped it open.

 

The first page read "interview with F. Castle by Karen Page." His heart felt like someone had reached in and twisted it. This was going to hurt. Frank had given his side of the story, where he'd been and how Frank had been brought back into the fight after his assumed death.

 

How Frank had gone after men whose names Billy felt he should remember, should be able to put faces to, but aside from his mentions of Schoonover and how he was connected, nothing he read felt familiar.

 

Then. Then he got to the section where Frank had told her what he’d apparently told him, that he’d known, known what the people he’d somehow been working for had done and that he, Billy had known and let Frank and Maria and the kids walk into that trap. His hands were shaking again by the time he got to when he’d taken a civilian family hostage and used them as leverage against Frank. By then, the trembling in his hands had grown so that he couldn’t keep the page still enough to read, even if he’d been able to see past the mistiness in his eyes. Unable to finish, he shut the folder again and chucked it back into the bag.

 

Still with shaking hands, he stood and began to strip off the stolen jacket. The saltwater from his tears was beginning to soak into the thin layer of bandages still around his head by then, so, scrabbling at the closure he’d clumsily secured earlier, he nearly tore the wrappings from his face, breathing in shock as the cold air hit skin that hadn’t been exposed to air outside the hospital in nearly a month.

 

He wanted to scream.

 

He wanted to cry.

 

He wanted to know everything that was still in that folder that’d been taunting him for weeks with everything he didn’t remember, and then go out and kill anyone Frank hadn’t yet for what they’d done to the Castle family, and to. . . whoever he’d been before. . .

 

He wanted to . . .

 

Instead, he pulled out the layers of thermal shirts and sweaters he’d bought, stripping off the scrubs top and undershirt, carefully pulling a fresh t-shirt on over his cast and bandaged stomach. Still not ready to confront the reality of his new face, he spread out the adhesive  bandages he’d need on his duffel bag, cleaning his left hand and the fingers of his right carefully with from the bottle of disinfectant before gingerly peeling the old gauze away from his cheeks and forehead and nose. By then the pain meds were probably kicking in, but he was still surprised how much less it stung than he’d expected. Working as fast as he could with his left hand, he spread the ointment on the rows of stitches he could still feel before carefully covering them with the new adhesive bandages, sticking them carefully to avoid as much mostly-healed skin as possible. When he went to inspect his work in the mirror of the dim, grimy bathroom, it was a face covered with a patchwork of dressings that greeted him.

 

Those were his eyes, for sure, but the rest of the face he barely recognized. What skin around his eyes that he could see was dark and sunken, still littered with smaller, mostly healed cuts, and his already lean face looked sunken and drawn. They’d cut his hair some when they’d first wrapped his head, but it was already growing back in lank strands that were beginning to fall into his eyes. It’d been a point of pride, once, one of the few luxuries he’d been allowed back in the Corps after he’d become an officer. Now. . . it just reminded him of a past he _couldn’t_  remember.

 

Turning and craning his neck carefully to look at his back in the mirror, he could see the remains of what must have been severe bruising, and there were several small, angular scars scattered over the tops of his shoulders, and what looked like a newer bullet wound in his left shoulder. He might not be able to remember what happened, but it’d been permanently carved into his skin, which wouldn’t forget anytime soon. He probably deserved it.

 

Back at his makeshift bed, he pulled a loose-fitting thermal shirt that fit over his cast on, then, wrapping himself in the new-old coat he packed everything else back into the duffel, and, climbing into his sleeping bag, tried to get the rest his aching body was screaming at him for.

 

He slept the rest of the the evening and through the night, his fitful dreams haunted by flashes of bone-white skulls and inky-black feathers.

 

The next morning Billy Russo bought himself a set of knives and a bus ticket out of New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's done now, at least, and we can get to the real plot stuff! My spring term is starting up again next week, but I still want to finish this soon, since I have some fuuuuun stuff planned for the Banshee gang. Also, I'm not allowing myself to watch the new season of Punisher until this is done, partially as a motivation to finish, and partially because I don't want this to be influenced by whatever they put Billy through there. Since I started this a year ago, there's some stuff, like his hair being cut, that I DEFINITELY don't have, but I've tried to work in nods to the stuff in the promo material like the blood and skulls in his dreams (except for the nightmares I wrote back in 2017. I'm ridiculously proud of myself for guessing what would torment him at night) 
> 
> Also, rereading this I think I got my timeline mixed up a little, I already said he woke up two weeks after Thanksgiving 2017, so by now it's about the 20-22nd for him, I thin. But it's all fic so none of that really matters!!!!!!


End file.
